Strange new splitting of results

[sparticus]

Just noticed some strange new splitting of Google's results - results 6,7 and 8 for a particular query have been given a border at the top and bottom and in that section Google has suggested I might want to see results for my original query plus one other word.

Has anyone seen this before?

[edited by: tedster at 12:04 pm (utc) on Oct. 5, 2005]
[edit reason] removed specifics [/edit]

[tedster]

Yes, for a couple weeks now -- it's apparently an experiment they've been doing here and there as they try to improve user satisfaction with their SERPs.

[thecityofgold2005]

Of course, experimenting with live serps and hence people's businesses and lives is OK.

What are us content providers here for after all if it isn't to be constantly eperimented on?

Back to the hamster ball for me.

[aeiouy]

Of course, experimenting with live serps and hence people's businesses and lives is OK.

What are us content providers here for after all if it isn't to be constantly eperimented on?

Back to the hamster ball for me.

The search engines are there to try and help people find things on the internet, not to help people be found.

[kaled]

The search engines are there to try and help people find things on the internet, not to help people be found.

Not strictly true... search engines exist to make money.

Realistically, the relationship between search engines and webmasters/content providers should be looked upon as symbiosis.

Kaled.

[sparticus]

Putting a border around some results is hardly earth-shattering tweaking likely to be detrimental to content providers. I dare say if you were the 'content provider' who had their results bordered as an apparent suggestion that the original query could have been better worded, you'd be pretty happy. All that aside, I can't see why Google has any obligation to anyone but its users and shareholders - if either group are unhappy they will make it known - disgruntled webmasters probably account for less than 0.0001% of Internet traffic and 99% of WebMasterworld traffic. Why the hell can't they put up a border if they want?

[decaff]

I believe the principle behind this UI experiment is to give multiple results sets for search phrases with multiple meanings...

[thecityofgold2005]

Mine was more a general protest which would include the 5/5 split serps and the serp #1 mega-listings.

In my humble opinion Google should concentrate on improving it's serps rather than messing around with the appearance of the results.

Google is only able to concentrate on users first (and content providers last) whilst it's search outperforms the rest. Once the other engines catch up in serp result performance (or a new engine with new technology usurps Google entirely) Google will regret the way it treats content providers.

I already encourage my users to use Dogpile since, due to it's technological innovation, it gives the best results for commercial searches.

Shareholders! That is a much bigger problem for Google. How to reconcile profit whilst giving the best results to users?

Google is wide open to a technological innovation exactly as Google usurped Altavista. I bet it will be human rated search a la the product review websites we have today.